My 10.5 week old lab pup is struggling with her tummy. She was weaned on Skinners Field and Trial Puppy food by the breeder so I bought the same to settle her into her new home. She’s on around 165g 4 times a day, anymore seems to upset her tummy but I don’t want to under feed her. I changed her from 3 feeds a day hoping that it would help with the issue. She’s an active girl and it quite skinny, has a roll of loose skin on her back/side - is that normal? Anyway, her poos are ok one day but can be softer the next and yesterday were runny so her tummy seems a bit up and down. I just wondered if anyone had any experience of the Skinners puppy food and whether I should introduce something else. She is a scavenger and will sniff things out in the garden, eat soil, poo, stones! She’ll also hoover up granny’s floor is she can find the smallest scrap of something tiny! We are practising ‘leave’ which helps sometimes but other times she’ll scoff whatever it is super quick! That said it’s difficult to know if it’s the food that’s disagreeing with her or the scavenging. I think I saw a post previously that said that a change of diet helped with the scavenging as it obviously replaced something that was lacking in the diet. Has anyone got any advice or tips?
Skinners food is good, so I wouldn't be looking at changing that without investigating other stuff. Have you taken her to the vet with a stool sample for analysis? She might have a bug that needs medicating. Loose skin is perfectly normal; it took forever for my latest puppy to grow into her skin, and she's never been skinny (she's on a permanent diet, poor love). My boy was very skinny as a puppy and couldn't eat a lot because it would give him diarrhoea. I found the amount he was OK on and just tried to very gradually increase it. He would look OK and then have a growth spurt and be super skinny again. He got a lot better as he got older, and now we don't have a problem getting weight on him. He still goes through skinny periods, but I can just chuck food into him to get him back to his optimum condition. Changing diet probably is unlikely to do anything to stop the scavenging; it's what Labs do. Yes, if they're on a poor food, that may contribute, but that certainly wouldn't be my first point of call with Skinners.
Do you mean you're feeding her 165g 4x a day so in total 660g? That seems a lot of food if so and overfeeding can cause runny tummies. I'd maybe try and reduce the amount and see if that helps.
My puppy had loads of upset tummies when she was younger - she’s nearly one and very slim but has had times of looking quite skinny. It took quite a while to sort the bouts of diarrhoea involving visits to the vets and various tests. I did change her food as it seemed chicken did not agree with her. I say ‘seemed’ because I can’t say 100% it’s that. She has the odd upset tummy now but that’s probably the scavenging which all Labs seem to do. I find Pro-Kolin great when that happens. Regards amount of food, I give her less than manufacturers recommendation and she has some of that in Kongs so spaced throughout the day. I found working with my vet very helpful as I found it very upsetting when she had diarrhoea as much as she did. I also posted a lot here about it which helped a lot too.
Skinners is an 'ok' puppy food. There are better, there are worse . The version you ate feeding is based upon chicken, which can be a cause of sensitivity in puppies and dogs and also contains maize which although a good source of nutrients is not easily digested. Personally I would consider a change of food away from chicken and maize after consultation with a vet to rule out any other issues and ensuring that it's not due to overfeeding.
Hi there! Personally I wouldn't rush to change her food just yet. Its an ok food (compared to some of the rubbish you can get) and she is at that age where loose stool is pretty common - a combination of lots of changes, new experiences, probably extra little treats, the scavenging. Important I think to get a vet check - not least to rule out a wee infection or worms - particularly if she scavenges..... jac
